In the Preface of his powerful book, Healing Words – The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, Dr. Larry Dossey writes,
“For many years, I’d ignored prayer. I considered it an arbitrary, optional frill that simply was not in the same league as drugs and surgery. I had in fact tried to escapespiritual or religious
influences in healing, fancying myself a scientific physician.”
Thankfully Dr. Dossey’s studies brought him in contact with scientific evidence of prayer’s healing power. Upon discovering a lone scientific study supporting the power of prayer, he began to probe scientific research for further confirmation and found an enormous body of proof – over one hundred experiments, many conducted under stringent laboratory conditions.
A majority of these studies “showed that prayer brings about significant changes in a variety of living beings.” This revelation led Dr. Dossey to embark on ten years of research into the relationship between prayer and healing. The result is Healing Words – a book that has become a classic discourse of the power of prayer in healing.
Dr. Dossey cites convincing studies and case histories that demonstrate how prayer can help heal a number of ailments including high blood pressure, asthma, heart attacks, headaches, and anxiety. He provided an example in an interview titled “A Conversation About the Future of Medicine”:
“In 1998, Dr. Elisabeth Targ and her colleagues at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, conducted a controlled, double-blind study of the effects of ‘distant healing,’ or prayer, on patients with advanced AIDS. Those patients receiving prayer survived in greater numbers, got sick less often, and recovered faster than those not receiving prayer. Prayer, in this study, looked like a medical breakthrough.”
In addition to providing numerous examples of how prayer can contribute to healing, Dr. Dossey book examines various methods of prayer and outlines practical guidelines for how we can all use our own minds and our connection with the divine, regardless of our religious inclination, to help gain and maintain optimum health.
Dr. Dossey’s groundbreaking work has helped create a wave of interest in the topic. According to his interview, Dr. Dossey can’t keep up with invitations to speak about these issues at medical schools and hospitals. Even Oprahinterviewed him about the topic. I am greatly encouraged by this increasing amount of attention being placed prayer and healing. And I agree with the author that Healing Words points toward “a medicine that is both effective and more humane, a medicine that works better and feels better.”
This entry was posted in Mindfulness, Spirituality, Stress Management, Uncategorized and tagged Dr. Elisabeth Targ, Dr. Larry Dossey, Healing Words, prayer and healing. Bookmark
the permalink.
Larry Dossey In "Healing Words: The Power of
Prayer...
June 26, 1994|By Cheryl Lavin.
Larry Dossey
In "Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine" (HarperSanFrancisco), Dr. Larry Dossey says prayers can really heal.
Q: What proof is there that prayers work?
A: There are more than 130 studies showing that if someone adopts a loving, caring attitude toward another living organism, human or not, that organism becomes healthier.
Q: For instance?
A: In 1988 a cardiologist divided 400 heart patients into two groups. One group had their first names given to prayer groups. Neither the patients nor the physicians knew who were
being prayed for. Ten months later, the prayed-for group had fewer deaths, and no one in it was on a mechanical ventilator, versus 12 in the non-prayed-for group.
Q: Does prayer work as well if you pray for yourself?
A: Almost all the studies have been done using an inter-cessionary because it's hard to separate the effect of prayer from positive thinking and the placebo effect.
Q: Can you cite a study using non-humans?
A: Ten test tubes of identical bacteria were divided in two. One group had people praying for its speedy growth, and it did grow faster than the other group.
Q: Why would whatever higher power that hears prayers answer such a seemingly foolish request as, "Please make these five test tubes of bacteria grow faster"?
A: Maybe that power is saying, "You ought to listen up, and here's the proof."
Q: What exactly is prayer?
A: My definition is very, very broad: communication with the Absolute. For some, this communication is words said out loud; for others, it's silent, even beyond words. And for some, the Absolute is the Christian God; for others, it's the universe.
Q: What is the most important factor in having a prayer answered?
A: The degree of the love, sincerity and compassion of the one praying.
Q: Do you have to believe in an absolute power for prayer to work?
A: Yes. If you don't, I don't know how you can consider it a prayer.
Click here for PDF more details.
“For many years, I’d ignored prayer. I considered it an arbitrary, optional frill that simply was not in the same league as drugs and surgery. I had in fact tried to escapespiritual or religious
influences in healing, fancying myself a scientific physician.”
Thankfully Dr. Dossey’s studies brought him in contact with scientific evidence of prayer’s healing power. Upon discovering a lone scientific study supporting the power of prayer, he began to probe scientific research for further confirmation and found an enormous body of proof – over one hundred experiments, many conducted under stringent laboratory conditions.
A majority of these studies “showed that prayer brings about significant changes in a variety of living beings.” This revelation led Dr. Dossey to embark on ten years of research into the relationship between prayer and healing. The result is Healing Words – a book that has become a classic discourse of the power of prayer in healing.
Dr. Dossey cites convincing studies and case histories that demonstrate how prayer can help heal a number of ailments including high blood pressure, asthma, heart attacks, headaches, and anxiety. He provided an example in an interview titled “A Conversation About the Future of Medicine”:
“In 1998, Dr. Elisabeth Targ and her colleagues at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, conducted a controlled, double-blind study of the effects of ‘distant healing,’ or prayer, on patients with advanced AIDS. Those patients receiving prayer survived in greater numbers, got sick less often, and recovered faster than those not receiving prayer. Prayer, in this study, looked like a medical breakthrough.”
In addition to providing numerous examples of how prayer can contribute to healing, Dr. Dossey book examines various methods of prayer and outlines practical guidelines for how we can all use our own minds and our connection with the divine, regardless of our religious inclination, to help gain and maintain optimum health.
Dr. Dossey’s groundbreaking work has helped create a wave of interest in the topic. According to his interview, Dr. Dossey can’t keep up with invitations to speak about these issues at medical schools and hospitals. Even Oprahinterviewed him about the topic. I am greatly encouraged by this increasing amount of attention being placed prayer and healing. And I agree with the author that Healing Words points toward “a medicine that is both effective and more humane, a medicine that works better and feels better.”
This entry was posted in Mindfulness, Spirituality, Stress Management, Uncategorized and tagged Dr. Elisabeth Targ, Dr. Larry Dossey, Healing Words, prayer and healing. Bookmark
the permalink.
Larry Dossey In "Healing Words: The Power of
Prayer...
June 26, 1994|By Cheryl Lavin.
Larry Dossey
In "Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine" (HarperSanFrancisco), Dr. Larry Dossey says prayers can really heal.
Q: What proof is there that prayers work?
A: There are more than 130 studies showing that if someone adopts a loving, caring attitude toward another living organism, human or not, that organism becomes healthier.
Q: For instance?
A: In 1988 a cardiologist divided 400 heart patients into two groups. One group had their first names given to prayer groups. Neither the patients nor the physicians knew who were
being prayed for. Ten months later, the prayed-for group had fewer deaths, and no one in it was on a mechanical ventilator, versus 12 in the non-prayed-for group.
Q: Does prayer work as well if you pray for yourself?
A: Almost all the studies have been done using an inter-cessionary because it's hard to separate the effect of prayer from positive thinking and the placebo effect.
Q: Can you cite a study using non-humans?
A: Ten test tubes of identical bacteria were divided in two. One group had people praying for its speedy growth, and it did grow faster than the other group.
Q: Why would whatever higher power that hears prayers answer such a seemingly foolish request as, "Please make these five test tubes of bacteria grow faster"?
A: Maybe that power is saying, "You ought to listen up, and here's the proof."
Q: What exactly is prayer?
A: My definition is very, very broad: communication with the Absolute. For some, this communication is words said out loud; for others, it's silent, even beyond words. And for some, the Absolute is the Christian God; for others, it's the universe.
Q: What is the most important factor in having a prayer answered?
A: The degree of the love, sincerity and compassion of the one praying.
Q: Do you have to believe in an absolute power for prayer to work?
A: Yes. If you don't, I don't know how you can consider it a prayer.
Click here for PDF more details.
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